Cooking Foods Italian Recipes – Stewed Mushrooms “Accomodati”

Cooking Foods Italian Recipes – Stewed Mushrooms “Accomodati” More details in my books published in Amazon.com Today I prepare pine three mushrooms stewed with potatoes, these are fresh mushrooms but you can do the same with frozen mushrooms of any type (porcini, ovoli, etc.). […]

Risotto Dried Porcini

….Dried “Porcini”Mushroom Risotto…..YUMMI !!!

Hello World!…….see the Aldente Kitchen “About” section…..

……Unfortunately vegetables and animals are our food, always show respect to them: do not waste food and use only the quantities you need….Maurizio Russo.

Topinambur are curious vegetable used centuries ago in Europe, this before potato was imported from the Americas and become the most popular food worldwide. Far to be forgotten Topinambur are appreciated for their delicate and delicious taste, here I give you a simple recipe to make a wonderful complement to main courses or, otherwise, an excellent vegetarian dish.

Topinambur born underground so they must be first cleaned from the residuals, then washed very well

using a small knife you can even peel the Topinambur if you like

usually I try to keep the skin because is rich in vitamins and minerals, so I scratch of the impurities with the blade of a knife, after that I wash the vegetables under running fresh water

to make easier this preparation I cut each vegetable in the middle

just like in the picture

I put to fry some butter with two cloves of Garlic (which I cut in half)

This is typical old recipe, the main ingredient is the blood-sausage which we call “berodo” in my born town of Genoa. The “berodo” is a sausage filled with cooked pig and/or cattle blood mixed with flour and/or other ingredients such as pine-cones, chocolates or wine this depends from the region where it is prepared. The following is our family recipe.

Ingredients: (4-6 portions)

four“berodi”

2 ounces of pine-cones

4 ounces of raisin

one spoon of ‘ “onion & carrot mix” find it in category “Preparations”

two cloves of garlic –extra virgin olive oil

few laurel leaves – white wine – marine salt

Start washing the raisin

cut the blood sausage skin

open each one extracting the content: only the stuffing will be cooked

no matter if you break the stuffing or if you leave big pieces: some people like it big while other like it smashed it will be good the same.

set in a plate and keep them ready.

put two-three spoons of extra virgin olive oil in a fry-pan, warm it up then add one spoon of “onion & garlic mix” four laurel leaves and two cloves of garlic

as the “soffritto” start to fry add the “berodi”

add a good pinch of marine salt: half spoon should be enough. Please do not exaggerate with the salt you can always check the salinity later on, when the dish is almost ready.

stir a bit making the soffritto goes with the berodi, then add the pine-cones

add the raisin too (this after you have squeezed them of the water).

cook it slowly, stir every two-three minutes

as you see they start to get cooked (six-eight minutes they start to dark) add half glass of white wine and…

…cover with a lid.

let it covered to cook for three-four minutes

then open the lid, stir and check for the salinity: add more salt only if needed.

you need to cook slowly

stir every two-three minutes

well, approximately in 20 minutes since you started you should have the berodi ready.

There are so many different excellent cheeses in Italy. One of the best is “taleggio” a creamy cheese born in the homonym beautiful village of Taleggio stoned in the nature near Bergamo in north of Italy. In this recipe I will use the harder part of the fennels (I separated and put away in the recipe “bitter fennels”).

If you are not able to find the taleggio you could use another creamy cheese of your taste.

If you don’t like fennels use boiled potatoes instead.

Ingredients: (6-8 persons)

half-pound of taleggio

few fresh fennels (or their fronds)

three pounds of codfish

3/4 of liter of milk

one handful of capers (for this recipe the capers under salt or fresh are better than under vinegar)

marine salt

and…………………………… that’s it !

the fresh fennels

cut and discard the hardest part of the bottom

take off the biggest fronds: if you like, you can use the whole fennel.

These are the parts we are going to use now.

Usually what I do is to keep the tender parts for other preparations like “bitter fennels”

Cut in big pieces each fennel

with the pieces that you have cut you make a layer inside an oven baking-pan.

Fill all the bottom…

spread a pinch of salt around

spread half glass of milk around, too.

put in the oven at 660 Fahrenheit (350 Celsius) for 10 minutes: the fennels doesn’t have to cook now, only to fade.

Prepare the “taleggio” cheese cream in this way:

pour half-liter of milk in to a pot, warm it up.

clean the external part of the cheese: take the quantity of cheese you need: I will cut two pieces of it for a total of half-pound

cut the cheese in pieces half-inch thick

put the pieces of cheese to melt in the milk: use “bagnomaria” to melt the cheese (keep the pot on the top of another pot where there is boiling water)

take the capers

wash under running water

chop the caperssmall.

drop in the milk

keep stirring the milk until it starts to boil, then take out from the fire.

clean, wash and cut the codfish in generous pieces.

after taken the fennels out from the oven cover them with the pieces of codfish

after this spread well on the top the milk-cheese-capers mix, a big spoon is helpful.

drop in small quantities on the top of the codfish, do it slowly with kindness using all the milk-cheese-capersmix